Segregated Housing, High Blood Pressure—NIH Finds Link

Living in racially segregated neighborhoods is associated with a rise in the blood pressure of black adults, while moving away from segregated areas is associated with a decrease — and significant enough to lead to reductions in heart attacks and strokes, a National Institutes of Health-funded study has found.

The findings, reported in the May issue of JAMA Internal Medicine, offer further evidence that policies to reduce residential racial segregation may have meaningful health benefits, especially for African-Americans, who suffer the highest rates of hypertension of any group in the United States.